Virtual Salon

Virtual Dynamics

2008-04-21T15:18:20-07:00

The cabling industry gets it's fair share of punches and the longer I go in the industry the more I feel that we deserve it.

It has long been the case that cable skeptics have challenged the idea that cables can even make a difference, well... I am obviously not in that camp but I do respect it. I respect that there needs to be a valid application of science behind the claimed "improvements" of audio.

As you may know, or simply may not, Virtual Dynamics is breaking new ground. Doing something that has never been done before that we know of. Something that will change the idea of the cabling industry once, and for all.

Now who would have thought that a small cable company from Canada would be the one to promote this change? Well, quite honestly, I didn't think so myself, up until recently. Yes, we have known that there was an audible difference based on our cables since the time that we started to create them, but wires and conductors themselves are really only a very small part of the Virtual Dynamics story.

You see, we have always claimed that the wire itself would only make a very small difference, and for the most part the differences in wire could be attributed to conductivity, which simply means, the size of the wire, and also somewhat, configuration. The configuration part is where I really feel the challenge to the wire industry is legitimate and very skeptical.

Why? You might ask. Well, the stranding and creating of different pathways in multiple strand cables is truly a two edged sword. We have and industry that is completely convinced that you shouldn't run an 8 foot speaker cable to one side and a 6 foot to the other, a host of people who can hear the difference and an industry in complete and total agreement that it's a poor idea, in fact, don't we agree that it is downright just wrong? But, once we wrap it together and call it a single conductor, even though there is multiple strands underneath, When we call it a speaker cable and not speaker conductors, which is what most speaker wire is. Tons of cables all working together towards one goal, what do we call this achievement? Stranded cable, and we hope to soon prove that it is maybe the single worst thing you can do to an audio system to distort the sound.

Virtual Dynamics is going to do this, well no, fact is the work has already been done and anybody that understands the basic ideas behind electricity could easily figure it out for themselves, however, through testing done at the University of Toronto, a test that we are preforming as we speak we are finding profound evidence of the damage that cables can make or the blessings that they can bring to the truth of audio.

Now let's, just for a moment, establish that we are on the same page about what truth might be. What I am suggesting here is that we would all agree universally through the entire audio industry that putting your speakers in a cardboard shipping box stuffing it full of packing material, covering the speakers in a good solid plastic wrap, sealing it all up tight and then hooking your speakers up to play them in this condition would be stupid, correct?

All we are doing is establishing that anything that is obviously creating distortion or stopping the signal from being accurately reproduced, and we know for sure that it is because we have been able to identify through simple understandings of science some things are simply wrong. Well, the wire industry, as a whole, has been definitely unequivocally and absolutely wrong. So, why would it be in our interest to educate the consumers about the truth of audio cabling and how it is actually detrimental to an audio system if we are a cable manufacturer? Well, that is easy, we are not an audio cable manufacturer. Our devices have never had really much to do with any other product in the audio industry . Our approach is completely different. The things that we are trying to develop have nothing to do with the wire industry. We are a technology company, and we are out to prove that our technologies are legitimate, and even revolutionary.

To date, to the best of our knowledge, we do not have a competitor... We would proudly and cheerfully put our cables against anything in the market, especially when it came to real world testing. That is how we are different.

Pretty bold, I know, but you know, it is okay to be bold if you can put your money where your mouth is, and the tests that we will be providing over the next several years, but starting in the next few months, will help us establish for you the consumer, one important thing... Truth.

If you have not tried the technologies in Virtual Dynamics then it is time you did. The results from our preliminary tests show that we are, indeed, offering a unique audio product that is like nothing else in the audio marketplace. It is proving that our cables not only do not distort the sound, but they will actually increase the electrical specifications of a connected component. We can prove it , we have been proving it to our customers for years, and the tests that we are having done will verify it for the world.

Are you ready for some audio truth?

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

Fighting for Consumers - Virtual Dynamics, and Who We Are

2008-03-12T16:27:07-07:00

As our company grows, and becomes talked about more, I am brought back to remember how I started and what motivated me to bring my product to market.

These days we're trying pretty hard to get our message out, and I'd like to think we are doing an okay job at that, but the reality is we haven't been telling a message publicly loud and clear for way too long. So, what is our message? Well, that's why I titled this thread "Fighting for consumers." For the first 10 or 15 years of being an audiophile I struggled to know really anything at all about audio. I missed the fact that it was an electronic device just like a computer, and either you knew how they operated or you didn't.

I bought parts for mine on a regular basis. For me it was a true addiction. One of those types of addictions that you put before everything else. I so desperately wanted to know how things worked. I find myself in my advertising, this blog, and everywhere else, hoping to communicate to people, and show them, and tell them, what I ended up finally learning. What did I learn? Well, audio does come at a price, it is just not the price that i thought it would be. It is not monetary, you can't buy it.

The only way that you can truly get to know how audio works is to learn the science behind how the machines themselves operate. If an electric motor is a machine, then so is your amplifier. They are too closely related of brothers to not fall into the same category. In fact, your audio system is not so unlike your microwave, your coffee pot, your computer... you get it, electronics.

For six years I have been answering questions and the question I think I get most often is "What would sound best?" I think it sums up what everybody really wants, well, let me share just a small story with you, I'll keep it brief. I recently set together a system, maybe not so recent, it's been gone for about a year now, but this system was something that you couldn't buy. I mean it wasn't about the fact that nobody has enough money it's just there was only one like this.

It had been taken from the very best equipment that I could find and everything was torn down and rebuilt using everything that I had come to know for high end upgraded caps, to technologies like dynamics filtering and our speed of light built right inside.

It represented hundreds and hundreds of hours of my personal man hours of labor, and I would guess close to 300,000 dollars of cash investment, and I realize that that was all "at cost". I say one night after getting to the point that I knew what to do well enough that I could get up anytime that I wanted to and make my audio system significantly better with a few minutes, usually with a soldering iron in hand and a couple of inventions that I learned that I could rely on. My amps at this point were a special design, one only, and the circuit was from Steve Keiser. Each amp was fed by a farad of capacitance. I had custom built stands for my speakers and every driver was customized by myself. Machine shop time stopped being calculated pretty soon after I started, and I seemed to live there for a while. With all of this time and all of this investment here's the one thing that I have learned. It will always get better.

I mean that. You cannot hit utopia.

If you think you have, and you don't believe what I'm saying contact me and with a few minutes and soldering iron, I will ruin it for you. So why is there no pinnacle? Well, because gents, ladies, it's a moving bar. Recently, I have been trying pretty hard to explain some fairly basic stuff. I remember one conversation with a very intelligent and kind I person who was almost hurt as I started to explain the basics. He had an engineering background, and in part, I think a little distraught that a guy like myself, with no secondary education or real electronics background could provide such explanations and experimentations that he could do for himself that challenged what he had been taught to believe.

It was almost a "Who are you to be challenging me?" type of feel. I would explain how something worked , like how no two conductors would be the same , and then he would argue that they could be, so we broke it down, and we looked at the likelihood of "could they be?" and the answer from he, himself was , no, I guess not. If no two particles are the same, then no two conductors can be the same. He went from believing as an educated person that they had to be, to knowing, from simple understanding, that they couldn't be.

See, my problem is, I want to help consumers, but even the most basic or arguments that should be so easily won, to help consumers understand better, are taking such a tremendous fight. I have been asked, "why don't we do more testing?" and, we are, but I guess this is the point, isn't it? For the basic design of a conductor, what makes it special, and what cables really do, we seem to have no collective clue, as an industry.

What I have seen, learned, and come to understand that, just like I had to go through it, the only hope I have of helping you, as a consumer, is to encourage you, hope for you, help you, do the best you can to understand what it is you are buying, how and why it works, and how much impact it will make on your system for the amount of dollars you have to put towards it. My hope is that prestige in High-End audio shifts from what is most expensive to what can be explained by simple, easy to understand science the best.

It's not to say that cool inventions should be excluded, even if they are not easy to explain, but without the basics most audiophiles will never assemble a system like the one they dream of having.

New Speakers or properly designed cables?

2008-03-07T15:02:45-07:00

What happens if the new speakers you are looking for are no better than what you have? Consumers understand that cables can dramatically change the sound of an audio system. Speaker cables soar in prices into the tens of thousands, but as a consumer how can we justify these products and these prices?

I urge you as an audiophile and an audio manufacturer to learn about the products that you buy. Do you know and understand how loudspeaker works? Do you know and understand exactly why cables change the sound? The truth can be a somewhat scary adventure but as a consumer, you are the one at risk….

Do you remember a few years ago when we lost the ability to control Bass and treble through the twist of a knob? We were informed as consumer s that this could create distortion. The resistive pathway that was created by these devices would lead us astray from the purity that we seek after as audiophiles. Unanimously the industry agreed that purity is possible and likely to be achieved if we just omitted this device.

Out of this the multi-million dollar cabling industry was born virtually overnight.

For those of you who have been around for a while, you will remember that the speaker cables and interconnects that were starting to be promoted could work to replace these devices. In fact all you have to do is scan the forums and the millions of conversations to see what bass and treble controls have been replaced with.

The reason that bass and treble controls have been replaced by exotic audio cables is because they create the same basic effect for the same basic reason!

The problem is we can no longer, as an industry, easily understand what happens, because the explanation is a little more difficult to understand, however, consumers are buying in to maybe one of the greatest tragedies in audio history. One that we are sure to look back at and say, “How did we get there?”

What makes a cable better? I mean truly better, cleaner, clearer and more accurate? Well, look at all the different designs being touted as the absolute best. They range in design from conductors the size of a human hair to ones goliath couldn’t bend. They are made from aluminum, gold, copper, silver and almost any metal, and even non-metal that you can think of, and in as many different shapes and configurations as there are companies.

The one consistent thing about them, if they are really really good, is that they are extremely expensive!

It has become a growing industry where cable prices are the single largest determining factor that many consumers are consulting to assure themselves that this cable is, indeed, better.

In any other industry such diversity would likely be laughable. Why? Well, let’s look at this. What if tires were made from rubber, or nylon, or ceramic, or copper, or Teflon… what if they were square and rectangle and oblong and hexagonal? Would we be so easily convinced by a huge price tag that the new ceramic, square tire priced at 50,00 dollars was actually better for our car?

Well, I am here to tell you as a manufacturer, as an audiophile, and as a friend, that is exactly where we have found ourselves.

This ad was created to promote and encourage change to build a more sensible and competitive marketplace driven by consumers just like you who have taken the time and the energy to become informed about what you buy.

As you know, we have a speaker cable, the virtual dynamics Genesis, that in a 6 foot Bi-Wire pair has been touted as “The Best.” At a mere cost of 30, 344 dollars these cables will compete with anything at any price.

Consumers, audiophile friends, brothers of the industry, we need to change.

This ad brings change. I want to sell you my 30, 000 dollar cables, although slightly used, in a 6 ft bi-wire pair for 9000 dollars. Do you know why? Because I can afford to. Why?

One of the reasons we have returned to direct marketing at Audiogon is because we could no longer pretend to compete and play both sides of the fence. Dealer margins on audio cables can grow beyond your imagination. Let’s consider that if there is any truth to a cable’s quality being dependant on price and not manufacturing costs but retail as prestige, what could happen to a cable costing only a few dollars to make each when an ingenious, or even a realistic marketer looks at this industry?

Cable prices have become an elitist who’s-who that woos even the very finest of us.

I put this cable together based on several different elements. Let me explain to you the simple fact of why it is better.

First, a conductor is more conductive because of how much larger it is, and conductive conductors are quite likely the single most important thing you should look for. Smaller conductors, regardless of their purity have higher resistance, dramatically higher resistance that simply creates signal loss.

I am saying that there is no other way in science to make a metal cable pass more signal than to increase signal flow through increasing the gauge size of the conductor and thus lowering the resistance to the signal.

Let’s look at what we have been taught recently. We have been taught to look for the purity of the copper. A common occurrence has seen the placement of repeated numerals such as 99.9999999… what does it mean? Well, what I can tell you is that it is not directly related with conductivity. In fact, electrolytic though pitch and our new Linipur, which is 99.99 percent pure copper what has been annealed are both 101% conductive. What do I mean by 101%, well simply, base don the standards that were formed years ago on what perfect could be for conductivity, we have now exceeded that in the metal industry with these two common conductors. Common? Yes! Often found in typical, high quality conductors at your neighborhood electrical store.

So, let’s look at what we have not been taught. Cables of the same gauge size and even the same material can also be different sounding one from another based on design. The greatest influence of design of an audio cable that creates sonic differences between cables is explained technically as intermodulation distortion. This distortion is what is responsible for the greatest influence in sound that an audio system can have. It is today’s bass and treble control that we spoke about.

How does it work?

Well, I’ll sum it up quite simply, and you could certainly do an experiment like this at home. Take a 12 gauge, or any gauge size you prefer, but have both a solid core single conductor in that gauge size, as well as a stranded conductor. A stranded conductor, by definition, would have 2 different conductive pathways, or more. Typical audio cable is made of fine strands woven together, as many as a hundred or so, all serving as a single conductor. That particular thought is where science deviates from what we, as consumers, would normally believe.

What we did is we took out a constant fixed resistor that we knew the value of and we replaced it with a floating variable resistive value that would be simply impossible to calculate because it is simply ever-changing with every track of music that you play.

Imagine having replaced bass and treble controls with maybe a million band EQ and hiring thousands of people to constantly turn the knobs for you, just for fun. That is the scope of what we have traded bass and treble controls for.

As a consumer I realize that it is difficult to understand this very non-technical explanation. Much more technical, and who would possibly want to read it, assuming you do now… but friends this is where your 30 000 dollars could be going if you are not aware of what you are buying, how it works and why. You may be purchasing a beautiful set of square ceramic tires if we were to build an analogy for you.

The cable that we are offering is, in our understanding, simply the most innovative and technically advanced product that you can purchase to obtain cleaner, clearer and better sound. There is not a competitive product because there is nothing like this cable being manufactured by anyone else. Nothing even close.

So, if you are looking to make a big improvement in your audio system, maybe we need to talk. Give us a call and let us help you understand your purchase and make a better more educated buying decision.

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

165 W Stereo Amp

2008-02-21T12:18:28-07:00

Exciting news from Luminance audio. Virtual Dynamics has been aiding in the sale of a new audio product. The KST-150 from Luminance audio is an advanced technology amplifier circuit that is surely stirring the audio industry and audiophiles with its rave reviews. Sam Tellig from Stereophile boasted the amplifier should be a class A recommended component, and argued that the amplifier would be a marvel even if it sold for 18,000 dollars. He suggested that at this price point the KST-150 would force the audio industry to a standing ovation.

The KST-150, as you may be aware, sells currently for $3000, truly a very unique product for audio amplification. Luminance is joining forces with Virtual Dynamics. Steve Keiser has supplied a very unique circuit for Virtual Dynamics to implement and build another amplifier around.

Of course, as can be expected I guess from Steve Keiser, the amplifier boasts unbelievable performance capabilities that include 165 W continuous into 8 ohms from 20 hz to 20khz, doubling to 330w at 4 ohms. This amplifier circuit provides less than .1 % total harmonic distortion, even at full rated power up until clipping.

Intermodulation distortion is less than 0.04 %.

The slewing rate, responsible quite directly for how many driver modulations a speaker can make, is rated at 300 Volts per microsecond. This is in the vicinity of 6 times standard speed for audiophile components with similar circuitry.

The frequency response is an absolutlely stunning 0 Hz or "DC" to 700 kHz. This makes the amplifier capable of producing frequencies at 35 times the industry standard of 20 Hz to 20kHz.

Square wave rise time is measured at 1 microsecond.

The amplifier was tested for the ability to drive capacitive loads and it was measured to less than 5% overshoot on a ten kilohertz square wave into 5 microFarads.

The damping factor relates to an amplifiers ability to recover its power. It is rated at 1000 at 50 Hz. The out put impedance of the amplifier is rated at .2 Ohms and the input impedance at 20 kOhms. The efficiency of operation of the output stage is 90%, which means that it wastes less than 10% of the total incoming energy.

The quiescent bias current of output stage is rated at 200 milliamp. The amplifier features a driver stage of push-pull complimentary cast-coated topology for maximum bandwidth and linearity.

Absolutely no overall feedback at 20kHz and above.

Although most people wouldn't understand all of these specs it is well noted that an understanding of each one of these performance factors is critical in making an amplifier perform at reproducing music accurately.

This circuit is exemplary in every fashion. It does everything incredibly well. It leaves no stone unturned and no parameter of amplification untouched. Steve's circuit will be combined with much of the technology that Rick Schultz has been using in Virtual Dynamics Audio cables for the past several years.

Rick actually started applying his base technologies in audio equipment, not audio cables, and has been doing so for around ten years.

The abilities that are given in designing a circuit with Virtual Dynamics in mind from the start will make it possible for us to show the credibility and essential need for these technologies to be employed in all audio equipment.

The chassis has been designed, the circuit boards are being made and we are about 60 days away from having the completed product. it will not be until this time that the circuit can be re-measured to show the virtues of our technology, but we expect that even though this is a remarkably performing amplifier that both the sonic attributes and the specifications should dramatically improve. If you are interested in being one of the first to own maybe one of the highest technology amplifiers ever made we hope to be able to offer this amplifier for just under 40,000 dollars US.

Pre-orders available Immediately.

Keep Your Ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

Genesis 1.1

2008-02-06T13:25:38-07:00

I guess I never really introduced Genesis 1.1 to most of you,so I'll start with that. For those of you that are curious about why Virtual Dynamics would have such a crazy cable available for its customers. First, it is available, indeed, but I have talked a few people out of buying it. Why? Often audio is a part of our lives but does not dictate our life. Genesis is one of those products that is going to dictate that you make an investment into it, like we have, not only financially, but also in handling this product. It is a product that is truly unique in a world of similar things.

Genesis is not to be confused with audio cable! I would hope, if you've experienced Virtual Dynamics, that you wouldn't compare any of our products to audiophile cabling, but Genesis takes a giant leap towards the commitment to letting everything else be compromised but the sound.

If you have been in tune to the word that Virtual Dynamics is trying to help audiophiles with by spreading you'll know we believe that there is one thing in a conductor itself that matters beyond everything else, and it is the single most important thing that can currently be done to allow more signal to flow through and audio cable, that thing is to increase the gauge size of the conductor.

So, allow yourself to imagine a conductor with enough current carrying capability to allow 10 times the amount of electrical energy to run through it and then use this cable to carry signal.

That is exactly what Genesis is about. It starts with the rediculous. We wanted to try and see what would happen if we were to use the simplest theory in physics to build what was supposed to be the very best conductor that you could get. What makes this conductor so special? Well, it is 10 times more conductive than a 16 gauge wire. A 16 gauge wire is larger than most stock power cords. It is incredibly large for use as a conductor in an interconnect. It is capable of carrying as much as 22 amps when used for internal wiring on a chassis. A 16 gauge is considered by most, in our industry, to be a pretty big wire to build an interconnect from, and would make for a nice flexible cable.

However, the 6 gauge solid core conductor found in Genesis interconnects, speaker cables and power cords can carry up to 101 amps, has a conductor diameter of 4.11 mm and rates at a resistance of only 0.3951 Ohms per thousand feet, and 1.295928 Ohms per Kilometer. You could use this cable successfully to connect your cd player to your friends audio system across a small town like Barrhead, Alberta.

So, let me help to put this in perspective for you, as of course, this is a Virtual Dynamics forte. If you were to have a direct comparison running a 16 gauge wire 321 feet is the same as running a 6 gauge wire 0.62 miles, or approximately 2/3 Mile. The ratio is 10:1.

Now remember that even though we are talking distances , these distances are directly related to and making comparison to, resistance of the actual cable. So let's say by using a conductor that was 99.99999999999999 pure we managed to get, let's say, 102% conductive, I realize this is hypothetical, and maybe a tad aggressive to think that copper purity could make that much difference, but let's just say that it could. Even if you were to use this awesome conductor it would still only conduct 1/10 the amount of signal that Linipur 6 gauge Genesis wire already does.

Sitting here and thinking about it as an audiophile I've got a deep hearted and throaty Oooohaha, how bout you? I'd have to think that as an audiophile this is the kind of stuff that is exciting to us. How do I make my audio system better? Physics buddy, physics... gotta love the math.

Now, I will tell you, Genesis only starts here, it is the core and the heart, but it is far from the major technology behind the Genesis audio cable product.

So I urge you to think about this one thing, don't you want to hear the Genesis 1.1. If you are not drooling as you read this you are not an audiophile. :-)

Please stay tuned, we'll tell you more about Genesis very shortly, or give us a call right now! It's toll free, don't be shy, your ears will love you for it. 1-877-347-4489

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

How I'd Hate to Be a Cable Customer.

2008-01-31T12:23:05-07:00

I opened a fresh new magazine today, that I had just been sent, and in it was one of the largest advertisement pullouts I had ever seen for our industry, of audio cables. It was filled with advertisements, and I'd hate to tell you what those advertisements cost, but if you knew, it would be a lot easier to figure out why some of the prices are the way they are, and why you see us advertise so seldom in large magazines, but the was not my issue.

For some perhaps, I believe a pretty picture of a cable may be all it takes to start the drooling of a seasoned audiophile. I read through as they explained how cables work, and you know what? They seemed to point at a few things that would make a difference, and some of the points had some actual truth to them, and some were highly irrelevant, but added to the flair, even if there was no real description or explanation to help you understand anything about what they were saying.

After reading through it, I noticed it was summed up with the recommendation that you ought to try some high end audio cabling for your audio system, but as I looked through with the advertisers that were presenting their wares, I saw so many completely different ideas, from manufacturers all claiming to make your system better.

The problem that I saw that would make it so hard for me as a customer, was that there really was not enough information in there to tell you how to pick, and the most vital information on how to lower distortion in an audio system through cabling, was completely left out.

In fact, as I peered through I came back to realizing that if i really didn't understand how cables worked, that articles was not too likely to help me, and I was probably going to pick the cable with the prettiest picture.

As a manufacturer, a designer, an inventor, but mostly a friend, I feel for you our customer, the ones who are supporting the cabling industry. How difficult must it be for you to find a little truth.

It leaves you with the idea that all of these cables are right, that all of these cables are better, that as long as you spend some hard earned dollars on them, and as much as you can, you are sure to get better performance no matter the design or construction. Knowing how different all of these approaches to cable construction really are it seems ironic that the pullout itself suggested at all that there really could be a "right" way of doing it.

One part of the article suggests that a simple way of allowing more signal to come through is to increase the gauge size of a wire, however I couldn't help but notice that although it addressed larger gauge sizes lowering resistance to allow more signal to travel, it was not under the proper category, and therefore was made almost elusive. I couldn't help but feel that maybe that was in support of all the designs that use ultra thin wires with very high conductor resistance, just so they wouldn't feel like they were being picked on. In fact I couldn't help but notice how gently the article was written, as if to say, even if a manufacturer isn't doing what we say works in this article, they may have a good reason. This left me wondering if the good reason might not be that if you didn't support them too, with your purchases and your confidence maybe they wouldn't have the advertising budget to be included with all the rest.

How gently we tread on our advertisers, how far away from the truth we must stay to protect them, how elusive we must write, and the creativity we need, to sum up a technical article with everything probably works if you spend enough money on it.

What makes me upset, and as I am writing this, I wonder how I could ever reach all the people that I would like to reach to help them out of this foolishness of high-end audio cable, and the monster that has been created. I hope you endevor in truth, to find the product that really does work, and to know why and how it did.

I would like to sound a little more uplifting, but after flipping and reading through I could only feel a little hurt for you, our cable industry customer.

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

The Truth About Science and Cable

2008-01-30T15:18:23-07:00

I have a question, and a suggestion.

The question is one that you might suspect I should have the answer for, and I thought I did. I just thought I would get some of your perspectives. As we have gained exposure by putting ourselves out there a little bit more, in front of the audio community, it seems a growing number of opportunities to meet all sorts of people with different thoughts on cables. The ones that puzzle me most are the ones that explain how they believe that cables cannot make a difference.

Am I so troubled with this because I am a cable manufacturer? Well, maybe that adds to it, but no, that's not really my problem. My problem with this argument is that it becomes very very personal. As I have said before in an earlier blog, science is defined as the explanation for an observation. What this topic comes from is mostly audio threads, and audio forums, where people continue to liberally attack people who claim that audio cables make a difference, or attack people who claim that they can't. The thing that I have seen is that the ammunition being presented unanimously is that the one arguing cables cannot make a difference always argues that they don't know how or why a cable could make a difference.

So let's re-define science. Let's make up a new definition, we'll call it the explanation of the observation that I can't observe until I've explained it. I think if we were to agree on this, it would solve a lot of the fighting.

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

News for the month and what's up in 2008

2008-01-29T11:01:14-07:00

We have made a lot of changes and although many of the things that we're doing for 2008 started in 2007 we hope that as we continue to launch 2008 marketing, headed up by Brad Blackmere, you will find our commitment to you our customer and getting you what you needed, wanted and doing it more aggressively than we have ever done in the past. 2008 is surely the year that you will find yourself with more Virtual Dynamics than ever.

Our key in marketing, and what we are doing today, is to try to help educate audiophiles on the potential that Virtual Dynamics has for dramatically increasing the quality of music reproduction.

In looking around the audio scene today you will find a lot of really cool products, and I think, overall, that most products are getting better. I don't think I have ever been more excited than I am about some of the new products that are hitting the absolute mark, and to me that is, cleaner, clearer, more realistic sounding audio.

Of these new products that I have come across, which absolutely deserve the mention, are first and foremost, Wadia digital corp. Wadia builds CD players that are as profoundly different as the new 581, these guys deserve applause. I have gone to show with the Wadia gear several times, and have always just loved it, but I will admit that with the newest products from Wadia used as my source I just don't think I have ever been more satisfied about listening to music.

Frank Tchang, from Acoustic Systems Resonators is a genius in his own right. He has developed a revolutionary new product that at first look makes every mind doubt it, but no music lover can possibly deny these amazing little products, and from the reports that I've heard back form CES 2008, it sounds as if Frank's new speaker may just be as miraculous. If you've ever met him he is one of the craziest, kindest and nicest people in audio.

Anyway, back to topic. Marketing can lead you to making decisions on amazing products like these by helping you to clearly understand them so you can decide whether they fit your lifestyle needs. Great marketing begins with intent. Our intent is inspired by marketing guru Philip Kotler's quote's "Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value." With our videos, forums, blog, website advertising, and every means that we can we hope to share with you why Virtual Dynamics is an audio product with genuine value. In a word revolutionary. I don't mean to boast, but I have learned to be confident about what you know, especially when you have poured your heart and your soul into knowing it.

I am often asked who do you compete with, or who is a competitive manufacturer? The answer is still, after 6 years, I don't know. Why? Well in part, the culture of our company. We are a collaborative culture company rather then a competitive culture company. I believe that selling more cables will not make our cables better. As an artisan you get better by redefining and innovating the standard for world class in your genre. I urge you to investigate what Virtual Dynamics is doing. We are not a cable company, we are a technology company, who is designing, manufacturing, selling and promoting the most advanced technology audio products that we know of in the market today. In the rapidly growing cable market there are new pieces of wire showing up almost daily to compete for the wire market. Brad's mission is to share with you information that helps you to clearly understand what genuine value in a cable looks like.

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

Linipur Video

2008-01-23T13:09:41-07:00

I wanted to take a moment to address our Linipur Video . In watching the video I realize that we have not completely helped you to understand what the problem is in using stranded audio cable, so I wanted to take a moment and help you understand just a little better, what we are trying to explain. First, it might be important for you to think about how many times a driver modulates per second and what it takes to get accuracy from an audio system. Let's say that we are trying to recreate 20,000 hertz. In order to recreate this frequency we need to accurately move a diaphragm 20,000 times per second. One modulation too many, or one modulation too few, and you have not hit your mark, meaning that you have not accurately reproduced this tone.

So how does that relate? Here is what we are trying to explain. Imagine a single modulation of a driver, like the very first outward movement in the goal for 20,000 driver modulations per second. If this frequency was coming from the CD player and then split into several different conductive pathways, like those found in all stranded cables, the positive charge of the AC waveform that is first flowing through is going to find several different conductors, all with different resistances, unless they are superconductors it is almost unthinkable that any two conductors, no matter how hard we might try, could be exactly the same in resistance, nor is it reasonable to suggest that any two millimeters, centimeters or meters of even the same conductor would have exactly the same resistance, so, back to our conductor and our signal. The signal flows through each conductor at a slightly varying speed, this is part of what resistance is known to do, change speed. That one little push represented by a small amount of electrical energy in a very fast and short burst may be traveling through thirty different conductors, and therefore, 30 different routes to get to its destination, the pre-amp.

To make an analogy, it would be like going from north to south New York, down 30 different routes. All of them will eventually get you to south New York, but each route will take a different period of time based on how many traffic lights, how many cars, pedestrians, whether it is a highway, or a city street, bridges, and maybe even the odd traffic jam. Understand that electrons certainly encounter every bit as much of a unique circumstance moving through each of the conductors as what we explained in New York traffic.

So what we are defining for you is a simple understanding of why this first signal is going to have a problem being accurate. Once you split the signal up into 30 different conductors you have created 30 different smaller versions of the original signal that all have to follow a different route and endure different circumstances (or resistance) to get to their destination. What comes into the next component, let's say the pre-amp, is 30 separate signals. Se your preamp doesn't understand, or care, that you think it is only one signal, it simply processes all 30 and outputs them once again, one after the other.

Immediately behind this signal to push the driver forward is the signal that will be telling the driver to come back, so we'll come back to this thought. As the signal leaving the pre-amplifier enters the next conductor, and let's say it has 30 strands, the first signal of the 30 that arrived from the CD player, will enter into each and every one of the 30 new conductors from pre-amp to power amp, the second signal that was slightly behind the first, also enters into all 30, in fact, in their turn all 30 of the first 30 signals enter into the next 30 conductors, building 900 new signals.

The first one to arrive at the power amplifier will be the one that came down the most conductive pathway from CD to pre-amp, and then found the most conductive strand in the next interconnect, from pre-amp to power amp, and it will be activating the transistor with a positive charge, telling them to send the positive position of the AC waveform down the wire, the next will come down the second most conductive pathway from cd player to pre-amplifier, down the most conductive pathway from pre-amp to amplifier and so on and so forth, until all 900 have finally arrived. But remember, now, that that negative was right behind, and it of course it too followed down the most conductive conductor of the first thirty, to most conductive conductor of the next thirty , and while the first 900 signals of positive are making their way through negative signals are already beginning their trip. The conflict becomes the greatest when these confused signals are activating both the positive and negative transistors at the same time. This is also true for tubes. When a positive transistor is charged as well as the negative transistor, the push will be the sum of whatever the negative transistor is taking away from the positive transistor. This is know as intermodulation, or non-linear distortion. Because of the confusing signals and the time delay and the resistive values being built by igniting both the push and the pull transistors at the same time, it is not possible to not affect the sound of the audio system, because the original signal has been changed, and will never be the same again.

Of course, this is even far more complicated than what I have explained, but it is simple and gets straight to the facts, and the fact is, that although cables can change the sound, are they honestly making the sound better? You have to know enough about conductors to be able to decide this, so we decided to try and help. Using this method of carrying the signal of course it is highly unlikely, unless the conductors were all superconductors with no resistance, that we could create the exact 20,000 hertz signal that we were trying to create.

If you still don't quite get this, we would be happy to explain it more over the phone. Give us a call so we can tell you more about Linipur, and our solutions to this problem.

Keep your ears tuned,

Rick Schultz

New Videos!

2008-01-14T10:01:36-07:00

Hello folks,

I'm excited today.

We're rolling out our new technology section and the new technology videos that cover our conductor design and the dynamic filtering treatment.

Rick and I have been working on these when we've been able to grab a few moments for the past few months, and it's exciting to see a new phase of our message come online. I hope you enjoy.

Linipur: Video
Dynamic Filtering: Video

-Brad